Lexington Scrabble® Club 2011-2012 Season

This reports on the season which ran from September, 2011 through August, 2012.

The Lexington, Massachusetts Scrabble® Club #108 has been running
continuously since it was started by Edie Berman and Muriel Sands in
January, 1980. We meet nearly every Thursday night of the year in a
comfy basement meeting room of the First Parish Church, situated on
Lexington Green behind the Lexington Minuteman Statue. Judy Horn has
been directing this club for about 26 years. Judy Cole serves as
associate director. Mike Wolfberg joined the club within its first
month of existence, and he took on the role of club statistician within
the first year. The club has operated with its own rating system,
designed primarily by Alan Frank, since early 1981. Ratings are based
on the percentage of points which each of the players scores in each game.
The club web site includes a detailed description of this system.

This is a report of the highlights of this club's September 2011 through
August 2012 season. In this season, individuals played 4924 games,
and so there were
2462 games in all. The average score in all of these games was 386.
These numbers were 5308, 2654, and 387 for the previous season.
Two seasons ago, the average was 386.

Of the 4924 individual games, 4608 were played by an "active player".
We define an active player as someone who played at least 20 games in
the season. The average score of the active players was 384 for the
season. These numbers were 4882 and 387 for the previous season.

There were 52 club sessions during the season, and
average attendance was 22.3, down .5 from the previous season.
These statistics indicate that each player played on the average of about 4.2
games per session. We realize this is higher than in many other clubs, and
so some of this club's achievements in one season should be understood
in this context.

126 different players have attended the club in the past 2 years.
During the 2011-2012 season there were
42 active players, namely those who played at least 20 games, and here are
the top 30, ordered by decreasing club average rating (not shown
here, but these are in the other table below) :

Collins Club Ratings

This club started keeping statistics for games played using the
Collins lexicon for the 2011-2012 season. A Collins-specific weekly
stats report was issued by email and posted on the club web site
when there were Collins games played. Collins games were played
on 38 evenings during the season.

In this season individuals played 256 Collins games, and so there
were 128 such games in all. The average score in all of these games
was 420.

These are the average ratings of the players who played at least 20
Collins games in the 2011-2012 season:

1812.40 Evans Clinchy
1746.22 Richard Buck
1727.67 Rebecca Lambert

NASPA ratings

We usually have about 4-8 players in the top 100
rated tournament players in North America,
based on the North American Scrabble® Players Association (NASPA) ratings.
NASPA took over the from the National Scrabble® Association (NSA)
in July, 2009.
Our club roster lists NASPA ratings
of active players; these are updated a few times each year.

ISC Players

Challenges and Postmortems

The club has continued to use the
WHAT
program on one or two laptop computers available to all players at the
club. Players tend to handle their own challenges using the program, and
they often check on racks, etc. after a game is completed to see what
was possible. Since WHAT can provide definitions, this is an
efficient method of doing postmortems.

High Games

The highest game score in a club session during this season
was 700 by visiting player Karl Higby.
This was Karl's highest-scoring game to date in a club or tourney.
This ties the 6th highest score ever achieved in the Lexington Club.
The game is detailed
here.

Most Games

Judy Horn played 321 games, which is
29 higher than her previous season's number.
Joel Horn played the second-most
games during the season, with 305 games, which is
4 higher than his previous season's number.
Seven seasons ago Judy Horn played 406 games,
which broke the record for the most games in a season.

Most Wins

With 215 wins, Joel Horn had the most wins,
and the runner-up was 197 wins by Ben Harrison.
In the previous season, Joel also had the most wins with 204.

Most Points

With a total of 127,238 points,
Judy Horn scored the most points in this season, up from
116,430 in the previous season.
Joel Horn scored 127,148 points, so they were essentially tied.
In the previous season Joel scored 118,292 points.

Highest Percentage Above Average

In order to qualify for the highest percentage above average
accolade, you must have already played at least 20 games in the season.
The highest such game was Claudia Cassel's 559, and
that was 61.9% above her average.

Many Bingos by One Player

There were two 6-bingo games played in the season.
Merrill's 673 game was one of these, and
Joel Horn's 603 game was the other.

High Losing Score

The highest loss during this season was Claudia Cassel's
480 (to Ben Harrison's 558).

High Total Points

The game just mentioned above had a total of 1038
points, and this became the sixth-highest total to date in club history.
It was the high total for the current season.

High Bingo

Joel Horn played a
158-point AGNOSTIC
in the 2011-2012 season, but
we are uncertain if this is indeed the highest bingo of the season.

High Tie

Jesse Day and Mike Wolfberg had the fourth-highest tie in club
history, with a game score of
446-446.

High Non-Bingo

In October, 2010, Jamie Ryan made a 144-point
non-bingo, which became the
club's highest over its history.
During the 2011-2012 season the highest non-bingo was made by Joel Horn.
He scored 126 points for
ENAMELED15A
though the
Es at
15E and
15G.
Joel passed up making a bingo elsewhere on the board for fewer points,
and as a result was able to retain the blank in his rack.

Low Tie

There was a low tie of 327-327 between
Richard Buck and Joel Horn. On the same night, Joel and Larry Katz
tied at 355.

Newsy Item

Judy Horn prefixed
RED
with RETAILO to make
RETAILORED as a 10-letter bingo.

High Session Attendance

The highest attendance during this season was
30 players on 22-Mar-12 and 17-May-11.
One contributing reason for the unusually high attendance in May is
Mark Fidler's Scrabble® students had been attending the club as
part of their course activities.

More Details

Further details for many of the club records mentioned above can be
found on this club's statistics page.